Mao was an evil man that led an evil regime and, without a care, directly or indirectly contributed to the peacetime deaths of tens of millions of his own people. There is no justification for that. If you want to know the how and why then this book is highly recommended. ( )

We've all heard of the horrible atrocities committed by the likes of Hitler, Stalin,or Mussolini. But for a long time due to the utmost secrecy Mao upheld in China and the cult of personality myth he created for himself, Mao's legacy kept him out of their league. However, from page, one it becomes clear that Author Jung Chang wrote this bio to blow away the myth that Mao was concerned about and acted in order to improve the lives of the people who served him. In Jung Chang's telling of Mao's life the only thing that concerned Mao was himself. She also makes it clear that what sets apart Mao from some of the most horrible monsters to ever walk the face of the earth, was the sheer numbers of the people concerned. During his decades long rule he controlled fully one fifth of the worlds total population. One fifth ! Hundreds of Hundreds of millions of these people were murdered outright. Those that escaped death suffered cruel, harsh, penniless lives. The fact that the whims of just one evil man could expose one fifth of the worlds' population to such abject misery is absolutely mind boggling. ( )

An atom bomb of a book is about right. If you are too sensitive to read about corruption and atrocities on an epic scale, and the downright insanity of the megalomaniacal leadership of a totalitarian state - then don't read this book.
The story of communism in China is right up there with the Nazi holocaust, and by far exceeds the elimination of entire social classes by the Bolsheviks. I am very thankful to be living in a democracy where crimes against humanity on such a scale could be prevented by the people removing those responsible from office.
Sadly, that would still not be possible in communist China, where no doubt another Tiananmen Square-type protest movement would once again be crushed by tanks at the behest of their own government. Only the example of successful democracies can save them. ( )

Mao egy dög volt. Ezt persze eddig is tudtuk. De hogy ekkora dög volt, az még számomra is újdonság. Sok szempontból Sztálin updatált verziójának tűnik: az a fajta diktátor, aki felismerte, hogy ha nem hagyja magát korlátozni az ideológiáktól, az növeli stratégiai mozgásterét. Ilyen értelemben ő is elsősorban retorikailag volt marxista, valójában bármilyen kártyát szívesen kijátszott a kultúraellenességtől a nacionalizmuson át a szimpla xenofóbiáig, ha épp attól remélte hatalma megszilárdulását. Ő is, mint a diktátorok általában, állampolgáraira absztrakcióként tekintett – viszont ezt olyan léptékben csinálta, ami ép ésszel felfoghatatlan. Meghal 300 millió kínai egy esetleges atomháborúban? Oda se neki, legalább mindenkinek dupla annyi helye lesz. Hát mivé lenne a világ, ha soha senki nem halna meg? A parasztoknak kevesebb napi kalória jut, mint az auschwitzi foglyoknak? Legalább nem híznak meg, mint a nyugatiak. Úgyhogy csak növeljük háromszorosára a kötelező beszolgáltatást, mert a ruszkiknak élelmiszerrel kell fizetnünk a haditechnikáért. És mellesleg Mao rendelkezett a diktátorok egyéb szériafelszereltségeivel is: paranoiás volt, és bár nem nagyon értett az olyan apróságokhoz, mint a gazdaság vagy a hadvezetés, sosem szűnt meg mégis belepofázni mindenbe. Például mekkora nagy ötlet szerszám nélkül kizavarni a jónépet, hogy a két kezükkel építsenek víztározókat! Igaz ugyan, hogy az első áradás elmosta az egészet, de kit érdekel, én nem ott lakom. Meg micsoda remek idea a kert végében vaskohókat építtetni a falusiakkal, és beolvasztatni velük még a szerszámaikat is, csak mert az acél országa akarunk lenni! Igaz ugyan, hogy az így nyert fém semmire se lesz használható – még a popónkat se tudjuk kitörölni vele, hiszen FÉM. Mindennek végösszege (a szerzőpáros számítása szerint) cirka 70.000.000 kínai holttetem.

A kötettel csak az a baj, hogy nem igazán történelem. Hanem egyfajta ellen-történelem – vagyis a hivatalos maoista üdvtörténet pontról pontra végigvitt cáfolata. Olyan szinten Mao van a középpontjában, hogy az már nemhogy a tárgyilagosság rovására megy, de egyenesen beledarálja a tárgyilagosságot a komposztba. A kuomintang például, való igaz, Mao közvetlen környezeténél jóval kevésbé volt megveszekedett tömeggyilkosok gyülekezete, de e kötet alapján konkrétan cserkészcsapatnak tűnik. Ez pedig azért van, mert a szerzők vélelmezhető szándéka szerint semmi, de semmidesemmi nem terelheti el a figyelmünket Mao páratlan gonoszságáról. Természetfeletti démont csinálnak belőle, de olyan mélységig, hogy még Sztálin agyvérzését is szép óvatosan a nyakába varrják. Komolyan. (Ráadásul Chang és Halliday valószínűleg telepatikus képességekkel is bírnak, mert olyanokat írnak, hogy „Mao az ágyában arra gondolt…” – nos, én elhiszem, hogy Mao se az ágyában, se máshol nem gondolt semmi jóra, de azt azért nem merném állítani, hogy bárki tudhatja, mire gondolt.) Mindez oda vezet, hogy az egész tömeggyilkosságért csak Mao és a legszűkebb slepp felel, maga Kína népe pedig (a legtöbb tisztviselőt is beleértve) a megerőszakolt szűzlány szerepét játssza, akit terrorral és zsarolással térítenek le az igaz útról. No most én ebben mértékkel hiszek – tapasztalatom szerint a diktatúrák nem működhetnek anélkül, hogy a népesség számottevő része (a „számottevőn” lehet vitatkozni) ne állna mellettük. Vagy azért, mert a rosszabbik énjükre erősít rá a Nagy Vezér, vagy azért, mert olyasvalamit ajánl fel nekik, amit az előző kormányzat elmulasztott: munkát, vagy továbbtanulási lehetőséget a legszegényebbek számára is. Például. Nos, ez az elem ebből a könyvből teljesen hiányzik. És szerintem enélkül meg vagyunk fosztva a lehetőségtől, hogy igazán megértsük Mao rendszerének lényegét. Csak a szörnyülködés marad.

Mert szörnyülködni amúgy igazán jóízűt lehet ezen a könyvön: igazi Fekete Könyve az ázsiai XX. századnak. Jó gyomrú olvasók mindenképpen vágjanak bele, mert számos érdekes, releváns információ van benne, még ha néha el is rejti őket a borzalmak monoton sorjázása. Csak épp egyszer szeretnék olvasni egy olyan könyvet is Mao-ról, amiből nem csöpög ennyire az amúgy jogos gyűlölet.
( )

Mao Zedong is alone among the major tyrants of the 20th century never to have faced a historical reckoning. While the crimes of Adolf Hitler’s regime have been well documented and the Russians have at various times acknowledged the famines and purges under Josef Stalin, the full extent of the suffering inflicted by Mao remains uncertain. This is largely due to the degree to which the Communist government in China today zealously protects his image, as though to question it is to undermine the foundations of their state. As a result, many of the details about his life remain overlaid by myth, while his culpability in China’s misery during the quarter of a century he ruled it remains under-explored.

To rectify this, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday spent over a decade combing through archives and interviewing people who knew Mao. Their book embodies the sum of their efforts, offering an comprehensive examination of Mao, his rise to power, and his actions as the leader of the most populous nation on the planet. It’s an impressive work, but also a deeply flawed one that often reads more like a prosecutor’s brief than it does a historical study designed to illuminate the life of the man and how he came to exert such an outsized role in China’s history.

These flaws become evident early in the book when the authors set out to explain how Mao rose to power. As they make clear, Mao was hardly destined for greatness. Not only was his background relatively humble, but Mao lacked the oratorical or organizational skills that have been the path of many to power. Nor was he an energetic go-getter, as he preferred an indolent lifestyle. What Chang and Halliday demonstrate Mao possessed in abundance was an eye for the main chance and a ruthlessness in destroying anyone who he perceived as a competitor. Time and again Mao outmaneuvered more capable colleagues and competitors, steadily accruing power even at the cost of thousands of lives.

Mao did little to endear himself to his contemporaries or his superiors in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet as Chang and Halliday argue, their opinions mattered less than those of the Soviet advisers aiding the Communists in the 1920s and their superiors in Moscow. The authors’ description of the role the Soviet Union played in Chinese politics during this period is one of the main features of this book, and reflects their extensive work in Russian archives. Impressed with reports of Mao’s effectiveness, time and again they favored him over their rivals – and with Moscow’s continuing support for the CCP vital to its survival, their preferences could not be ignored. As Chang and Halliday demonstrate, their support was a key factor in Mao’s rise to the leadership of the CCP and the war against the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek.

Once in command, however, Mao hardly distinguished himself as a general against the Nationalists or the Japanese then occupying large portions of China, and by 1946 his forces were on the verge of being crushed by the Nationalists. Then how did the Communists ultimately triumph over Chiang’s forces? Here Chang and Halliday credit two factors: an untimely American intervention for a cease-fire, and the planting of moles within the Nationalist military command. The former gave Mao’s forces a much-needed breathing space and an opportunity to rearm with Soviet aid, while the latter often spared threatened Communist forces while leading their own men into traps. The result was Nationalist collapse and Mao’s victorious declaration of the People’s Republic in 1949, beginning his long and disastrous reign over China.

Yet ruling over China was not enough for Mao, as he aspired to nothing less than global domination. In this he was restrained by both the devastated condition of his country and Stalin’s reluctance to support the development of an indigenous arms industry. Mao sought to overcome both through a combination of adroit diplomacy and a callous exploitation of his people. Leveraging Nikita Khrushchev’s need for allies, Mao from him won the technical advice and resources he needed to develop an atomic bomb program. This he paid for by requisitioning enormous amounts of agricultural produce from the peasantry, beggaring the populace in order to support his ambitions. When others in the CCP leadership pushed back against the cost of this, Mao solidified his power with the Cultural Revolution, which threw the nation into chaos and inflicted yet further trauma upon the people. Their suffering continued largely unabated until Mao’s death in 1976, at which point his successor Deng Xiaoping soon began to reverse his policies and launch China onto the path that has brought it to the present day,

Chung and Halliday’s book is a damming indictment of its subject. Yet in painting such a uniformly negative portrait of Mao what they produce is a caricature. Nowhere in it do they consider why many people chose to follow him absent some form of compulsion, or why his second and third wives – the former of whom refused to renounce Mao even under torture, the latter a capable guerrilla leader in her own right – fell in love with him. Equally problematic is the authors’ overreliance on Soviet sources, which results in a very Russian-centric view of Mao’s life that, in the absence of similar materials from Chinese archives, likely exaggerates the Soviet Union’s influence in Communist Party politics in the 1920s and 1930s. Not that the authors allow the absence of archival material to prevent them from engaging in speculation about some of the shadowier aspects of Chinese history (such as the possibility of Nationalist moles sabotaging their war effort), provided that it fits their interpretation of Mao. Taken together, these issues make Chang and Halliday’s book one that should be treated with caution, and that for all of its research should not be regarded as the final word on Mao’s life and career. ( )

Comprado no sebo do Ita-Uba, em 01/11/2021 ( )

I didn't get very far with this one, but that's a fault of mine, not the book. I did get far enough to start to get a picture of just how much of a *freak* this guy was! It's really scary how someone like that could get into a position of such power!

This biography definitely had a point of view about its subject, and any information presented was filtered through that point of view. It often felt like this book was prepared as an incredibly detailed rebuttal to an argument that Mao wasn't a tryannical dictator...which isn't an argument I've ever heard made seriously. Ultimately, I think the book suffered from having such a strong POV and could have made its point just as effectively by presenting an accurate outline of Mao's actions and letting the reader draw the conclusion about his character. ( )

Rather dry but a very detailed reporting on Mao, the butcher of China. ( )

It was difficult for me to rate this book. On the one hand it's obviously the definitive biography of Mao; on the other it's a punishing, tedious read. My guess is that very few people needed to be convinced that Mao is one of history's worst villains (anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the Cultural Revolution understands the depth of his evil), but Jung Chang enumerates his crimes in such exhausting detail that Mao: The Unknown Story becomes, in places, flat-out unreadable. The author's bias is so overt that she captions a photo of Mao and his henchman Lin Biao thusly: "Note Mao's black teeth, which he rarely brushed. He did not have a bath or a shower throughout his twenty-seven-year reign." When the text is constantly bogged down with these kinds of observations (and it is), I feel that I'm no longer reading a biography but a six-hundred-page tirade. Bring every ounce of your patience to this one. ( )

Very interesting, but difficult to read mostly because of the names. The author also seems very angry and comes off as overly biased in my opinion. But, there can be no denying that Mao Tse-Tung was a monster who caused the deaths of more than 70 million people. ( )

I read this book side by side with the other biography by Zhi-Sui Li, PhD. Very interesting how they comment on the same issues. Excellent reading. ( )

Jung Chang and her husband tell the story of one of China's most important figures and one the twentieth century's most infamous in a well-written and interesting biography.

Chang pulls no punches in exposing Mao as a dictator whose cruel rule inflicting much suffering on the Chinese (though it does not explain why so many followed him so absolutely); nevertheless, it is a well-researched book, particularly concerning the rise of Mao and the CCP.

Though there are legitimate criticisms, particularly its polemical tone, Mao: The Unknown Story is still valuable for furthering our understanding of Mao and his rule. ( )

This is a really well-researched book that is also very readable, but it is also seriously flawed. Chang and Halliday set out to prove that Mao was basically a sociopath, seeing in each of Mao's actions a machiavellian tendency to turn any situation to his advantage regardless of the lives destroyed. Showing that Mao was a sociopath is not that hard, but the authors take it to an extreme. They seem to think they know Mao's inner thoughts and motivations, even when there is no evidence to support them. It weakens an otherwise very interesting book because they overstate what they actually know. It reads more like an extended public lecture on the evilness of Mao. It entertains, but it also glosses over trying to prove some of its assertions.

The authors' overreach is unfortunate because they have done a tremendous job of digging into Mao's past. This is the most thorough biography of the man I have seen. Showing that Mao had no empathy for anyone and was a monster is not hard, so they didn't need to stretch their argument so far.

There are a lot of good points for the book. They do a great job of showing Mao's machinations of the Red Army on the Long March and again during the Rectification Campaigns in Yenan. This is where they pull together some very compelling evidence for his ruthlessness in removing enemies through intrigue and assassination. They also do a good job of showing how Mao used terror to cement his rule. The picture they paint is almost straight out of 1984.

They dismiss Mao's strategic capabilities in both WWII and the Civil War that followed. They instead give credit to his subordinates while also pointing to incompetence or betrayals of key Nationalist figures. While there is certainly some truth to the fact that Mao's reputation for genius is overstated, the authors make it seem like the ultimate victory of the Communists in the Civil War had almost nothing to do with Mao's leadership.

When discussing the Great Leap Forward, they have a plethora of sources, so I can't complain about their conclusions. They paint the GLF in an international context, showing how Mao wanted to supplant the Soviets as the leader of international communism. This led to increased grain exports at below cost prices, which contributed to famines in the countryside. They argue that the famine was initially kept from Mao, but when he found out about it, he considered the reports of famine exaggerated and a price worth paying for the greatness of China (meaning the greatest of Mao). This was probably the best section of the book.

The Cultural Revolution was a little more suspect. The period was full of confusion and contradiction, but the authors seem to think Mao had a plan the whole time, although that plan changed several times. They also attribute a lot of control to Mao, most likely overstating how much he was able to dictate things.

The opening with the United States and his death offer very little new, but it is a very interesting and detailed account. As per usual, they attribute every utterance from his mouth as an attempt to manipulate the situation to his own advantage, but they seem to be on more solid ground for these areas.

Overall, this book is very detailed and readable, but it is long and goes on about Mao's sociopathy ad nauseam. I recommend it if you have a lot of time and really interested in modern China. It covers a lot of ground and tells a very good story. ( )

Mao the Unknown Story by Jung Chang

Mao-

Not a dedicated ideologue but a tyrant who needed money, military supplies, and intelligence from Russia in order to get where he wanted to go..

Not a simple man, but one who truly wanted to rule China and would do absolutely anything to make that possible.

His incredibly complex, cut-throat and self-serving machinations throughout his life were awesome.

He also gives a whole new meaning to terms like paranoid, sociopath, sadist, and criminally insane.

This is the guy who shaped China's history and in doing so shaped China past as well as China present and future. The book is fascinating.

Do great men shape history? This one sure shaped China’s history and he did it all for himself and the fact that 70 million people were killed along the way bothered him not one iota. Tolstoy did not think it was the big men in history and for a long time I agreed with him but no longer. I confess he has revised my view of history and how it is made.

Trust me, you cannot imagine what Mao did; not in the deepest part of your darkest imagination could you imagine what this guy did.

This is a fact based tour de force that leaves one staggering.

I don't know enough about China to know just how historically accurate Chang's work is, but the book makes for a great read and provides considerable insight to Chinese history since about 1930. What I have come across that is contrary to what I've read before does not seem outlandish or implausible. ( )

This breathtaking biography of one of the 20th century's greatest villains is written with the fiery passion of personal involvement. Jung Chang's family suffered for their privileged position as intellectual upper party members during the Cultural Revolution. While Mao's life is presented from a hostile perspective, it looks to me firmly grounded in fact. The husband and wife team interviewed hundreds of people in China and around the globe (from Albania to Zaire) about Mao. Page after page of interviewees offers testimony to their exhaustive research as does the 58 pages long bibliography.

The most surprising fact about Mao was that he didn't believe in communism. From his early Randian ramblings on, he was interested in power. Joining the Communists. If another party had offered him a better way to power, he would have jumped ship. Not feeling any allegiance to party and idea proved to be a tactical advantage in the power struggle with his peers who often chose to sacrifice themselves for the party's sake. In contrast to most human beings, Mao only cared about himself, abandoning allies, wives and his children without qualms. Chiang Kai-shek let himself be controlled by Stalin holding his son hostage. Mao didn't care about the fate of his son held by Stalin.

Mao's supreme management incompetence is another unexpected finding of this biography. Time and time again, Mao managed to exhaust and destroy territories and armies put under his command. Most of his rivals were much more capable in command. Like a clumsy cat, Mao managed to land on his feet and walk elegantly away from the debris of his latest catastrophe. Despite a track record of failure, Mao fell upward and upward. Stalin somehow admired his survivor capability. Mao would not quit.

Regarding his management style, he was supreme at using Richard Nixon's Orthogonian technique of relying on building coalitions of less efficient but totally dependent toadies. They knew that they owed their position to Mao, a fact Mao made clear by humiliating them in public, again and again. Mao's meanness knew no bound: He even denied Zhou Enlai cancer treatment.

The biography also reveals that many of the commonly told stories need to be revised, e.g. Mao and the Communist leadership did not march but was carried on litters by starving and dying porters during the Long March. The Communists were also not in danger from Chiang Kai-shek who had pre-arranged the destination of the march with Stalin and used the Communists to gain entry into warlord-dominated Sichuan. Only when Mao foolishly deviated from the script was blood shed. Mao also needlessly prolonged the march by senseless deviations. He also didn't fight the Japanese during WWII, using them to weaken Chang Kai-shek and waiting for the war to end.

Overall, a stunning read about the 20th century's greatest butcher. One wonders where China might be now if its economic recovery process had started at the same time as the Wirtschaftswunder. Highly recommended. ( )

Forget everything you learned in school about Chairman Mao! This book corrects countless misconceptions and reveals the unvarnished truth about one of the most evil leaders in world history. ( )

Clearly and lucidly written, this account of Mao is a significant advance in the West's understanding of 20th Century China. According to the book, Mao's policies led to the death of 70 million Chinese after the civil war had ended in 1949. Determined to use food exports to gain international leverage, Mao kept the population so short of food that millions died. He had no compunction about torture and execution; he even set targets for state sponsored murder. The extraordinary thing is how his control over China meant that very little of these facts emerged during his lifetime.

Mao's amoral nature shines through this history. He really doesn't seem to care about the deaths he has caused; indeed, he thinks they are unimportant compared to turning himself into the world's leader. His colleagues are all pawns in his quest for power and determination to keep it, regularly at risk of denunciation, torture or murder. He treats his family, his wives and his children appallingly. The Mao in this book has no redeeming features, which seems odd; no matter how bad they are, most people have some kind of attractive characteristic. No doubt because of that, some reviewers have complained it has an anti-Mao bias; but the authors are careful to analyse their subject through recitation of facts rather than rhetoric. It is the facts than condemn Mao as a cynical, self absorbed and selfish, mass-murdering psychopath.

For anyone with an interest in China or twentieth century history this is worth reading. It isn't, though well written, an easy read, because of both the subject matter and as it is so densely packed with information. ( )

This is one of those biographies that astounds. Many of the common assumptions about Mao are turned on their head. He is portrayed as a selfish, sadistic, monomaniacal leader who cared only about his own rise to power--and damn the consequences! According to the authors, he killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined! Some reviewers have called this a polemic rather than a definitive, academically sound biography because so many of the authors' conclusions are based on unverifiable interviews. But I don't think anyone disagrees with the basic assumption, that Mao was a master myth maker and liar, and his ability to absorb events into his legend was his greatest gift. His Machiavellian activities continued to his last breath on his deathbed. Well written and compelling, if a bit long. ( )

The book is well written by experts. The information presented is detailed and authoratitive. From this book one can obtain a great deal of historical knowledge and a better understanding of how and why events took place during Mao's life.

I must say that after reading a biography on Hitler that comparatively Mao is more cruel and distasteful than Hilter. Mao is responsible for the death, starvation, torture, and poor living conditions of more people than Hitler. It appears that Mao had one strong motive in life; to benefit himself.

Furthermore, the book provides an education on the real interworking of communism, which is rather appauling. Mao's brand of communism assumed complete control of the population by cruelty and deceit. ( )

Fascinating biography and history of a man who was largely caricature to me. While I knew he was a "bad guy" I had no idea that he joins Hitler and Stalin as 20th century monsters. Must reading if you want to understand global politics of the century, or the social and psychological background of Chinese people. It reminds one that what's happening in North Korea today is not abstract news, but a living horror. ( )

The materials uncovered in this book come as a great shock to me. ( )

Extensively researched and well written I did not get bored once reading this book. It's a very complete biography of Mao's life from birth to death. ( )

The story is raw and unflattering. The author's research included several hundred interviews of people from many countries. My reading of the 864 pages goes slowly. It is like reading Michener. I had to renew it twice to get through it. I wish I had read this book before my visits to China. It explains many of the responses to question I asked. I will read other books by this author. ( )